Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.
It is the season to lounge on the sofa and consume a packet of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a poor film, or one that’s awesomely awful.
Once again, a crop of latest Christmas films aims to become part of our holiday traditions—potentially even joining the ranks alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).
Therefore, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the holiday mood, I watched as many fresh Christmas films as possible in a single day.
7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie
Beginning, ideally, on a good foot. This release is the exclusive 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.
The musical trio end up stuck in the UK after concluding their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”
The banter between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while devotees will no doubt notice lots of references as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.
It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.
It’s not legendary, but is great for devotees and a positive start to the day.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who must sit through it.
8.45am - Tinsel Town
Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star cast a pantomime.
“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.
His pantomime cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he insists angrily. It's easy to predict their retort. Except if you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.
There are some very funny lines, some touching side stories, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.
It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit tacky at another season, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄
Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma
A familiar face pops up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a fresh holiday staple?
This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who encounters Mr Sood, the latest spin on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.
This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a problem when he’s so central to everything.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
Lunchtime: Stuffed
There’s time for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “isn't big on Christmas.”
But after he is awarded an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.
There’s just one issue—he finds out there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the excess.
Fun while it lasts but not lasting.
Festive score: 🎄🎄
Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems
This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.
Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. During her travels, she runs into a guy in a book store who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.
A critic recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.
The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is particularly strong too.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄
3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas
Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, regardless of the attempts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.
The answer is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a panel of well-known figures.
It’s low-key but sweet, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄
4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.
Pfeiffer starts by mentioning Christmas classics like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before declaring: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”
So that’s the premise, but in reality it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
Formulaic Fun
The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new entry in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.
It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a far-off wintery locale and ends up finding romance.
In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher
